User blog:Unreal37/Thoughts on the Meaning of Time
First, one has to sit back and marvel at a comic that has been updated every hour for a period of 2 months - now up to 1700 individual strips in that time - with no signs of when its ever going to end, or even if it is ever going to end. I think the scope of this story is epic, but we won't know it's full epic-ness until many more months or years when people start to realize he's on panel 10,000 or 100,000... It's unbelievable if it gets to that. We're watching history - a type of comic that has never been done before. So far, in the story of Megan and Cueball, we know that they live at or near the beach. They built one heck of a sandcastle, but it has slowly been eroded by the rising sea. The sea shows no signs of stopping or receding (much like this comic itself). And our team sets off to discover the source of where the water is coming from. They only know of one little river, but that cannot possibly be the source of all this extra water. The spend many days of their time (weeks of our time) travelling along the shore to find the next river. Since they can't cross that river when they come to it, they travel up it, and through some hills and mountains. They discover many new things that they have possibly never seen before, including plants and animals and campsites and writing that they do not understand. But they never encounter other people. It's been a long time since they have seen the sea, or the river or have evidence that it is still rising. But they assume it is and so should we. Fictional stories (particularly dramas) can sometimes be grouped into Acts - where the first Act is to setup the premise and introduce the audience to all the players. The second act introduces the challenge or obstacle that stops our protagonists from achieving their goals. And the third act is the climax, where the obstacle is overcome. In the case of Time, the first two acts have almost melded together. We never really got any explanations of who Megan and Cueball are, their backgrounds, where they live, or who the people in the hills are. This leads to speculation in the forums that they are in a real place (Madagascar!) or are living in an ancient time (they know about castles, have backpacks, but have never travelled more than a few walking-days away from their home in their entire lives.) Part of the mystery of the comic is figuring that out. The second act is clearly the rising of the sea, and figuring out why that happens. Again, along the way we are introduced to new mysteries such as the strange writing, who maintains the trees, and what happened to the people who used to live there. There is no indication of when, if ever, the third act will occur. Will they get distracted from their quest to find the source of the rising sea? Will they ever encounter other people? There will almost certainly be new mysteries revealed, and Megan and Cueball encounter strange things they have never seen before. Category:Blog posts